Orbitofrontal-sensory cortical interactions in learning and adaptive decision-making

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a hub for value-guided decision-making, linked reciprocally with both cortical and subcortical regions. While projections from sensory areas to the OFC - and vice versa - are known to support goal-directed learning, these projections have often been studied in isolation, and their joint effect remains poorly understood. Here, we revisit these circuits through a unifying computational framework. We propose that sensory cortices send compressed task knowledge to the OFC to build abstract task models, while OFC feedback provides teaching signals that reshape sensory representations within the cortical hierarchy. This bidirectional exchange equips sensory areas with cognitive functions that extend well beyond passive feature detection, with significant implications for our understanding of learning, cognitive models, and artificial neural networks.